The Housing Crisis

The housing crisis is not confined to our country. It is general, embracing nearly all countries. And this is natural, for war — with all that preparing for it and plunging into its depths entails — makes building materials high in price and hard to come by. Our hope was great that this crisis would vanish once the war ended; but our hope has not been fully realized, and we still suffer great difficulties in obtaining a house to shelter in, whatever its conditions and circumstances.

However that may be, we are not here concerned to examine what the government ought to do to remedy the housing crisis. The government has enacted certain laws to protect the tenant, and has drawn back from enacting certain others. It has therefore become incumbent upon us to overcome these difficulties ourselves: to resort to sacrifice, accepting a small or humble house that we would not accept in ordinary circumstances; and to resort to good sense, making that house lovelier than it is, more spacious than it appears to the beholder.

This is accomplished with a little arrangement and taste. A single room can serve for sleeping and for sitting by day at one and the same time, and it may serve for taking meals as well. To achieve this, one should use the long seats that do for both sitting and sleeping, and use handsome chairs that serve for receiving a visitor and for setting around the table at mealtime. One should likewise choose cupboards and wardrobes that will serve at once for keeping clothes and for storing certain kitchen necessities.

Here, madam, is an idea upon which you can expand a great deal. In doing so you will make a practical contribution toward remedying the housing crisis which, as it appears, still holds this beautiful country in its grip.

And may the time not be long before you can easily choose the home that befits you. For nothing is sweeter to the mind, nothing more conducive to rest, tranquility, and family affection, than a home for which every member of the family bears love and tenderness.

And if your present home does not entirely please you, you have only to make up for its shortcomings with the cheerfulness, order, and beauty you bestow upon it.